Thank you to the many blog readers who responded to my story about the phantom power showing on the voltmeters in our Winnebago motorhome, even after I disconnected all the batteries while putting it in storage. Quite a few of you suggested that the small solar panel on the roof might be giving us the readings, and the more I think about it, that would explain it. It’s the only place electric could still be coming into the rig. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself.

Quite a few readers have asked if we have changed our minds about downsizing now that we’ve been home for a while. No, we haven’t. It’s the thing to do at this point in our lives. We had already pretty much reached that decision before we took off on last week’s aborted trip to Arizona to visit family. As I wrote in the blog the other day, it doesn’t make sense for us to keep a 40 foot diesel pusher in storage if we are only going to take one long trip a year and the rest of the time make shorter jaunts closer to home.

Although there have been several people express an interest in the Winnebago, most of them so far have wanted me to tote the note, which isn’t going to happen. I did have one offer to trade it for a mobile home and lot in Georgia, but I’ve already got a home in Florida and don’t need another one. But I am open to trades for part of the equity. Anybody got a nice pontoon boat or ?

Yesterday we had to take Terry’s new Chrysler Pacifica back to the dealer in Daytona Beach to get a special coating put on the exterior that is supposed to protect it long-term and prevent damage from things like Florida’s notorious love bugs, which can really tear up your paint in a hurry.

We’ve got less than 150 miles on it so far, but were both really impressed with the ride quality and how comfortable the van is. As I said before, it came with all kinds of options that will probably take me a year to figure out. One of them, which is pretty cool, is a self-parking feature. You’re supposed to be able to pull up next to an open parking space, push a button, and the van will parallel park itself. So yesterday I had to try it. And it works! It’s kind of weird sitting there without touching the wheel as the van backs itself into a parking spot, but it did a great job of it even though the space was a bit tight.

Fortunately, when I was a youngster learning to drive, a neighbor taught me how to parallel park, and following her directions I’ve always been able to do it quite easily. Over the years I’ve taught quite a few other people how to do it, as well. And believe it or not (and Terry will tell you it’s true, because she guided me as I did it), I even parallel parked a 36 foot Class A motorhome between two other RVs once. So I probably don’t need the self-parking feature on the Pacifica, but if nothing else it will be fun to impress people!

When we purchased our home back in October the previous owner left an old and very used washer and dryer. He told us that he didn’t know how much life was left in them, but we figured what the heck, if they worked for a month or two, it was that much longer before we had to buy new ones. And they actually worked well until just a week or two ago, when the dryer stopped heating. I could probably replace the heating unit in it, but like I said, both of them are very old and all I would be doing is buying some time. Besides, Terry deserves a new set, don’t you think?

She has been researching what she wanted to replace them with, and when we were done at the car dealer yesterday, we stopped at an appliance store in Daytona Beach that was well recommended and Terry found just what she was looking for, a heavy duty Speed Queen washer and dryer set that does not have all the digital electronics that so many do these days. We needed to check a couple of measurements, so after we got the pricing squared away we came home to make sure they would fit where we want them to go. It looks like we can make it work with no problem, so I guess today we will finalize the deal and arrange to have them delivered this week.

Today is your last chance to enter our FreeDrawing for a one year subscription to www.OvernightRVParking.com. This is a great resource for RVers, listing well over 13,000 free places where you can park overnight. It’s a $24.95 value and it could be yours free if you’re our lucky winner. To enter, all you have to do is click on this FreeDrawinglink or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening.

Thought For The Day – Work is what you do most of your life so that someday you won’t have to do it anymore.

In high school, I drove a 56 passenger school bus. I could just go into the reserved area unless somebody had their car there and I had to back into it. parallel parking was a piece of cake after squeezing that thing in.
We have a 30 foot C class we have been leased with. You guys may want something a bit larger with your computers, etc.